They Lied

Obamacare's 12 false premises and broken promises

On November 7, President Barack Obama made a first tentative stab at an apology for the fact that, despite his often-repeated assurances to the contrary, millions of Americans were losing their health insurance plans as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). "I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he told Chuck Todd of NBC News.

The president's reluctant apology was as empty as the promise that he broke. Obama was not sorry for the law or its impact on the health insurance status of millions, which was not only predictable but intended. Nor did he apologize for misleading the public, as he most certainly had. At a press conference the following week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney struggled to explain what exactly the president was contrite about.

Despite its insufficiency as a mea culpa, the president's interview was a tacit acknowledgement that the disastrous rollout of his signature legislative achievement had produced a crisis of confidence not just in Obama's competence but in his credibility. This development was underscored five days later when a Quinnipiac poll found that 52 percent of Americans no longer trusted him.

In a rambling, unusually reflective press conference on November 14, a weary-looking Obama actually swallowed a bit of crow instead of just picking at it. "I completely get how upsetting [the cancellations] can be for a lot of Americans, particularly after assurances they heard from me that if they had a plan that they liked, they could keep it," he said. "There is no doubt that the way I put that forward unequivocally ended up not being accurate." The president also acknowledged that "we fumbled the rollout on this health care law," saying, "I did not have enough awareness about the problems in the website." He added that "I think it's legitimate for [people] to expect me to have to win back some credibility on this health care law."

But Obama's broken promise that people who liked their health plans could keep them only scratches the surface of the administration's health care mendacity. As the following list illustrates, it was one of at least a dozen false or misleading statements that senior administration officials and ranking Democrats made before, during, and after Obamacare was signed into law. The persistent misrepresentations and outright lies were in fact integral to the law's passage, to its implementation, and to the damage-control phase that began with the botched launch of the online insurance exchanges in October. Judging by how badly the rollout has been managed thus far, it is possible that the president's apology tour has only just begun.

1. "If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it."

The most notorious of Obama's promises was arguably the most critical for Obamacare's passage. Here is how he put it a week after signing the ACA into law: "If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn't happened yet. It won't happen in the future."

Obama offered some variation on this promise dozens of times even after the summer 2010 release of rules governing which pre-existing insurance plans would be "grandfathered" into legal acceptability despite not otherwise complying with the new law. Those regulations prompted bureaucrats at the time to quietly estimate that between 40 and 67 percent of individual market health insurance plans would not be covered by the grandfather clause. Indeed, the rules were crafted narrowly to guarantee this result, so that healthy people on low-cost plans would end up switching to more expensive insurance, in effect subsidizing sicker people covered by the policies sold on the exchanges.

Obama's advisers knew full well that his original promise could not be kept. As The Wall Street Journal reported on November 13, the White House policy team pushed for more nuanced language than its political staff wanted. The wonks lost out to the hacks.

Reality: According to a November 4, 2013, report in Politico, more than 3.5 million Americans have been hit with health plan cancellations. Millions more are expected to follow.

2. "What we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed."

It wasn't enough for President Obama to mislead millions of people about whether they could keep their health plans. When initially called out on it, the administration responded with a lie about the lie.

"FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans," White House adviser Valerie Jarrett declared in an October 28 Tweet, simply ignoring the reality that the plans being canceled were terminated because of minimum coverage requirements that were built into Obamacare.

Cornered, the president attempted to rewrite history. "If you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan," he said in a November 4 speech, "what we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed."

Reality: President Obama promised repeatedly, with no caveats or qualifications, that people who liked their plans could keep them, and that no one would ever take them away, period. Versions of the promise were captured on video at least 36 times.

3. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period."

This promise was nearly as central to passing the law. In a June 2009 speech to the American Medical Association, the president put it this way: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period."

Reality: People who can't keep their plans often can't keep their doctors, because doctors are affiliated with particular networks and insurers. Many of the new plans offered through the law's insurance exchanges were built with narrow networks to keep costs down. Top hospitals are available under relatively few of the exchange plans, generally those with relatively high premiums.

4. "We'll start by reducing premiums by as much as $2,500 per family."

Just as Obama made the wildly unrealistic promise that his health care overhaul would not have any effects that people did not like, he also promised that it would have an effect everyone would like: lower insurance premiums. "It's easy to have good ideas and make big promises," he said in a campaign trail speech in 2008. "You've all heard plenty of that these past 20 months. The hard part is coming up with a concrete, detailed plan, and translating that plan into action. So today, I want to take a few minutes to tell you exactly what I plan to do, how I'll get it done, and how I'm going to pay for it. We'll start by reducing premiums by as much as $2,500 per family."

Obama made the promise at least a dozen times in the run-up to the 2008 election. But eventually the claim receded as average health insurance premiums continued to rise. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius backtracked in March 2013, saying that under the law some "folks will be moving into a really fully insured product for the first time, so there may be a higher cost associated with getting into that market." In short, maybe you can't keep your plan-and, oh yeah, your plan might be more expensive too.

Reality: The average annual premium for an employer-provided health plan rose from $13,375 to $16,351 between 2009 and 2013, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Prices for individual market plans like those found on the exchanges are also up, with the average state facing premium increases of 41 percent, according to a November 2013 analysis by Manhattan Institute health policy analyst Avik Roy.

5. "It will create 4 million jobs-400,000 jobs almost immediately."

It wasn't enough to pitch Obamacare as a premium-reducing law that would not have any negative consequences. Democrats also argued that it would create jobs. "This bill is not only about the health security of Americans," Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), then speaker of the House, said in February 2010. "It's also about jobs. In its life, it will create 4 million jobs-400,000 jobs almost immediately."

Reality: The gush of jobs never materialized. The unemployment rate slowly receded in the months after Obamacare passed, but largely because more people had quit searching for work. By 2021, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the law is expected to shrink the nation's work force by about 0.5 percent, since fewer people will hold onto their jobs to maintain their health insurance.

6. Obamacare "pushed back on the undue influence of special interests."

When he signed the Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010, President Obama proclaimed that it represented a triumph of the little guy over the politically powerful. "Tonight we pushed back on the undue influence of special interests," he said. "We proved that this government-a government of the people and by the people-still works for the people."

Reality: Obama cut deals with major incumbents in the health care industry to obtain their nearly unanimous support. America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group, backed the law because of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. The American Medical Association was reportedly promised that, in return for its support, Democrats would fix the way Medicare pays doctors-a fix that never came. And as documents released by congressional Republicans eventually revealed, the White House cut an explicit deal with the pharmaceutical industry guaranteeing that the administration would not pursue several policies that drug makers opposed, in order to get the industry's support for the law. Meanwhile, Obamacare has never been popular with the public it was supposed to be working for.

7. "We are on schedule, and will be ready for the marketplaces to open on October 1."

Democratic, Republican, and independent experts all repeatedly expressed skepticism about the administration's ability to deliver a functional health insurance exchange system by October 1, 2013, the day it was set to launch. Over and over again, federal health officials insisted that they would be ready on schedule. "I am confident that states and the federal government will be ready in 10 months," said Gary Cohen, who ran the exchange implementation project inside the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in December 2012. He repeated the claim in February 2013, and his colleagues followed suit.

In July, just weeks after a scathing Government Accountability Office report warned that the project had missed a slew of deadlines and might not be ready on schedule, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a web video titled "HHS is on Schedule," that ended with a dated promise: "10/01/2013: The Health Insurance Marketplace Will be OPEN for ENROLLMENT." Health agency spokespersons continued to proclaim the project's readiness right up to the moment of launch.

Reality: The launch was a disaster, with serious problems in many state exchanges and with the federal website freezing up just minutes after going live. It was a catastrophe that some in the administration knew was on the way. "Confidential progress reports from the Health and Human Services Department show that senior officials repeatedly expressed doubts that the computer systems for the federal exchange would be ready on time," The New York Times reported on October 12, 2013.

8. "Regardless of how the Marketplace is managed, consumers will be able to access the Marketplace with ease."

The administration did not just signal that the federal exchange site, HealthCare.gov, would be ready on time. The president and others also insisted it would be a snap to use.

"Starting on Tuesday," Obama said in a Maryland speech less than a week before the exchanges opened, "every American can visit HealthCare.gov to findâ€¦the insurance marketplace for your state." Using the exchange would be "real simple," he said. "It's a website where you can compare and purchase affordable health insurance plans, side by side, the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak-same way you shop for a TV on Amazon."

Cohen, the senior exchange official, sang the same tune to Congress in February: "We have been hard at work to ensure the Marketplaces will be easy to use when they become operational."

Reality: As Obama and Cohen were making their promises, they had no idea whether the site would even be functional. On September 26, the day of Obama's Maryland speech, "there had been no tests to determine whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to end," according to an October report in The Washington Post. That month Businessweek reported that such testing still had not been conducted.

9. "We expect to resolve these issues in the coming hours."

Following the disastrous launch of the exÂ­changes, administration officials said not to worry, that problems would soon be resolved. On October 1, the day the exchanges opened, one anonymous federal health official told Reuters that "we expect to resolve these issues in the coming hours."

But the system continued to struggle. A few days later, officials promised yet another fix was on the way. "To make further improvements to the system, we will be taking down the application part of the website for scheduled maintenance during off-peak hours over the weekend," an HHS official explained in a statement to the press on October 4. "We expect that Monday, less than a week after the marketplace opening, there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience."

Reality: The problems went much deeper than the administration initially claimed. Six weeks after launch, online enrollment in the federal exchanges was still stymied by serious technical failures. "The website is not working well," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney admitted on November 7, and it "hasn't been working well for the first month of the rollout." An HHS report later revealed that the site had been accessible just 42 percent of the time during the month of October.

10. "Take away the volume, and it works."

As the launch of the exchange system continued, top members of the administration began to admit they had a problem. But it was, in the words of HHS Secretary Sebelius, "a good problem to have." The failure, they claimed, was due to higher-than-expected traffic, meaning there was even more initial interest in the exchanges than the administration had anticipated. It would therefore be an easy problem to solve. "These bugs were functions of volume," White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park told USAToday on October 5. "Take away the volume, and it works."

Reality: Volume dropped, but malfunctions continued. Outside experts contacted by multiple news organizations found many shortcuts, messy construction, and unnecessary functions in the visible portions of the code. And insurers reported that the enrollment information they were receiving from the system was frequently flawed. The system was not just overwhelmed; it was poorly designed.

11. "No, we don't have that data."

How big were the problems with HealthCare.gov? The most obvious way to find out was by counting the number of people able to fully enroll in health coverage. But as the rollout continued to flail, the administration refused to release any data. In fact, in the first few days, officials simply denied they had access to the numbers.

"No, we don't have that data," White House spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters on October 3. "I can't tell you, because I don't know," HHS Secretary Sebelius told The Daily Show's Jon Stewart on October 7. Their pleas of ignorance strained credulity.

Reality: Leaked notes from the administration's daily Obamacare war room meetings later revealed that on launch day there were a total of six enrollments through five different insurance issuers. By the second day, the number had climbed to 248. The numbers were terrible, so the administration pretended they did not exist.

12. "[We] follow high standards regarding the privacy and security of personal information."

Beyond the issue of whether the exchanges would work at all, many had questions about whether they would be secure. The exchanges were designed to judge eligibility for Obamacare's insurance subsidies, which would require applicants to submit Social Security numbers, addresses, income numbers, and other sensitive personal information.

The administration insisted that Web security would be tight. "The final Marketplace rule," Gary Cohen, the top exchange official, told the Senate Finance Committee in February 2013, "ensures Marketplaces develop and follow high standards regarding the privacy and security of personal information while following Affordable Care Act requirements regarding the use of data."

Reality: By launch day, the deadline-driven operational demands outweighed security concerns. The exchange went live under a last-minute temporary security authorization signed by Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It said "aspects of the system that were not tested due to the ongoing development exposed a level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk."

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1. These plans being dropped were junk policies, and were never intended to be continued by the law. Reality: There are many stories, i.e. Powers, of comprehensive insurance being cancelled. Also, Obama said we could keep our so-called ‘junk policies’. “Actually, any insurance that you currently have would be grandfathered in so you could keep it. So you could decide not to get in the exchange the better plan. I could keep my Acme Insurance, just a high deductible catastrophic plan. I would not be required to get the better one.” – Obama, Feb. 25, 2010

2. Insure The Uninsured And Preexisting Conditions Reality: Obamacare has done little to change this. 35 states and DC already had protections for those with preexisting conditions. The CBO predicts 26-27 million Americans will still be without health insurance.

3. Stop The Moochers Reality: We’re still paying for: those with subsidies, those with preexisting conditions, those on Medicaid, and the millions Obamacare leaves uninsured.

4. Keep Kids On Plans Until 26 Reality: Only for policies that cover children. However, policies and employers aren’t required to provide child coverage, be they 6 or 26. Many employers are cutting spousal and children coverage.

5. Expand access to good hospitals Reality: Many of the plans exclude the top hospitals, creating a two-tiered system where rich Americans (and rich Canadians seeking to avoid their system) go, but us peasants can’t access.

Since the mid 1990s, teaching hospitals get a juicy check from Medicare. It pays all of the expenses and related overhead of the hospital in proportion to the % of patient days of Medicare patients (in addition to the reimbursement for services). The number of residents is mostly capped at the mid 1990s levels to limit the supply of new doctors.

Not only does this incentivize hospitals to keep Medicare patients as inpatients and rush private pay patients out, it is a way to pork up the costs like borrowing money from Goldman Sachs and assigning administrative salaries to the teaching function.

Medicare has a reasonability “prevailing cost” to train a resident and hospitals retaliate if any hospital can train a resident for less than the maximum allowable cost

2. Pre-existing conditions. The federal HIPAA law did away with pre-ex in most situations in most group health plans. And HIPAA also required a high risk pool or other option for people facing pre-ex exclusions in individual market coverage.

4. The employer mandate in 2015 will require large employers to offer coverage to dependent children up to age 26.

There is no denying the 12 broken promises outlined by Mr. Suderman. However, one could dispute the 12 false premises he claims. The basic premises of Obamacare are based upon the social subjectivist morality that says individuals should be willing to sacrifice their values (an health insurance policy they want, a doctor they want, etc.) to other people if society decides that is what they should do, e.g., altruism. Most voters think altruism is morally right. Obama was very clear about the premises upon which he would govern: Paraphrasing: “We’re all in this together.” “Those who are well off should be willing to help those who are less well off.” “Wealth and value inequality is morally wrong, so the government must redistribute the wealth and value from those who have wealth and values (good health care strategies) to those who don’t.” He did not lie about that. He governs based upon the moral premises he espouses.

It is the majority of the American voters who lied–they lied to themselves. They supported these moral premises by electing Obama twice, and they lied to themselves about the results they should expect. Pointing out lies given to hide the bad results of irrational moral premises does limited good. The premises need challenging. But to change this, one needs to offer an alternative morality, not one based upon social subjectivism–altruism–but one based upon reason and rational egoism.

They justified their desire to obtain the values of others by lying to themselves that it is morally right that wealthier should share with them. They failed to consider all the others who have less than they do. Now they cannot object because their moral premises allow the government to take from THEM and give to those who have less than they do. This is the manifestation of the downward spiral of altruism.

They justified their desire to obtain the values of others by lying to themselves that it is morally right that wealthier should share with them. They failed to consider all the others who have less than they do. Now they cannot object because their moral premises allow the government to take from THEM and give to those who have less than they do. This is the manifestation of the downward spiral of altruism.

This was something I tried stressing to a former friend during the Occupy Wall Street circle jerk. At the time I was making considerably less than him, and asked why I shouldn’t be able to take directly from him to help my situation. His only defense was that he wasn’t wealthy, and they should pay their fare share. Most of the time he refused to engage in an open debate and would dismiss me as an apologist for the 1%.

For the edification of those who should, but sadly do not know, an apologist is a person who defends or supports something that is being criticized or attacked by other people.

Tony|1.14.14 @ 3:59PM|# “Oh, it’s irrelevant whether someone’s wealth was earned or stolen?” You sleazy shitpile; the only one proposing theft in thsi discussion is you. Fuck you and your innuendos.

“Then where the shit do you get off mounting a moral high horse about people taking what’s not theirs?” So one sentence later you blatantly propose theft. The world would be a better place if you’d miscarried.

Practically all the “stolen wealth” I know of was done with the help of or through government directly, and then with the main focus on one party being the one you go to in order to buy the favors. Be it that you are unions or a giant corporation, your best buddy in the quest to stifle competition and to be able to rip others off, is a democrat politician.

I won’t even bother getting into douchebag like Moore or other idiots in Hollywood that have become stinking rich profiting of the very system they so love to bash.

By and in large the left wants us to believe the rich, but then only the rich that do not pay homage to the left, have gotten their wealth through nefarious ways, because then they don’t have to admit that they are basically no better than high way robbers stealing.

If Robin Hood was around today he would be targeting the very left that pretends it cares about justice.

Who here is assuming that? It would only be in a truly laisse-faire capitalists society that every cent everyone would own would be legitimate. It is the government interference into the economy that makes illegitimate wealth possible–by instituionalizing cronyism. As others have pointed out here on these threads, Big Pharma is making out like bandits on Obamacare.

It would only be in a truly laisse-faire capitalists society that every cent everyone would own would be legitimate.

How’s that? Everything’s legal, so nothing’s illegitimate? That what you mean? Otherwise, wouldn’t there still be fraud and exploitation (and inevitably much more than a regulated system)?

I’ve heard that canard a thousand times. Corporate interests influence government to get favors–therefore let’s get rid of government. But that just means they get what they want without having to bother with a middleman, right? Rules do not become better enforced when you do away with rulemakers.

I am not advocating getting rid of the government. That’s stupid. I am advocating a government that abolishes the initiation of force by protecting individual rights. That is the only moral purpose of government, and a true utopia–a society without the threat of force–is possible. That is what Hamilton, Madison, Adams and Jefferson were imperfectly struggling for, I think. After the the Civil War, the country was moving in that direction with great success in many ways, but since 1913 it has gone badly off the rails.

Government is force that corporations attempt to influence to their benefit. Minimize the power of government and you reduce the motivation for corporations to influence politics. Very simple concept, really. “rules and regulations” are the very weapons governments use that corporations want to control. Why would you want any more than absolutely required to keep people from harming one another?

The faulty assumption is that every cent in the pockets of the wealthy got there by legitimate means.

Tony, assuming that every cent in the pockets of the wealthy got there by illegitimate means is equally fallacious. I don’t think anyone in these comment threads is so naive as to believe the are no wicked people. If you read these threads, and not simply post knee-jerk reactionary comments, you would see cronyism and corporatism are almost universally reviled.

Of course if you go back far enough, we’ve all either benefited or suffered as a result of, frankly, genocide and plunder.

Irrelevant. We would also find acts of generosity, courage, and self-sacrifice.

The faulty assumption is that prosperity happens without society’s help. It’s nonsense. There’s a reason there are no Bill Gateses in failed states.

Interesting. I think many people here are sympathetic to that statement, probably for different reasons than what prompted your comment. I agree that Bill Gates did not become successful in a vacuum. He became successful, not because of society, but because a legal framework exists which protected his individual rights. One of the few legitimate roles of government is to protect the rights of individuals. Society as I define it, is made up of the voluntary interactions of individuals pursuing their own personal desires. Society is separate from government. Laws should be created sparingly.

I agree that Bill Gates did not become successful in a vacuum. He became successful, not because of society, but because a legal framework exists which protected his individual rights.

Good point. Let’s see what happens when an innovator creates a product in a nation where there was no legal framework? I’ll just pick a name out of a hat and say.. this guy:

Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris, one of the most popular video games in the world, and ended up getting raped by the USSR when it took the rights to it away from him. It wasn’t until the USSR collapsed that he finally started making money off the game.

So knowing Pajitnov’s story, why would anyone in a place without free ownership innovate anything if there is no incentive to do so?

The innovators make the things that make our lives better. Who is John Galt?

Hey Randroid, all evidence suggests that it’s in my rational self-interest for us to have a more socialized healthcare system (such as the one Ayn Rand availed herself of). While the competition is stiff, perhaps the most ridiculous thing about you guys is the belief that your batshit policy ideas are necessarily the product of clear-eyed reason, just because you say so. A is A, therefore laissez-faire capitalism is the best system, QED. What stunning insight Ms. Rand brought to the world of thought.

Tony|1.14.14 @ 11:49AM|# “Hey Randroid, all evidence suggests that it’s in my rational self-interest for us to have a more socialized healthcare system (such as the one Ayn Rand availed herself of).” That’s not evidence, dipshit, that’s your fantasy. And idjits like you don’t know the difference.

Tony–see the comment above to Sevo. Yes, I have read Ayn Rand’s philosophy. But I have verified her premises for myself for over 40 years by living and observing for myself. I did not accept her views as some “droid”-unthinkingly or without observing and understanding things form myself as we all must do as thinking individuals. Can you say the same thing about whatever philosophy you espouse? I present a reasoned argument. I suggest you provide something beside ad hominem if you wish to be taken seriously.

The problem with people like you Tony is that you do not realize that you are not getting socialized healthcare which would allow voters to collectively bargain for the best prices under the state, and you are not getting free market healthcare which would lower prices through completion. You are basically getting Ferengi healthcare.

Tony–apparently you have gather quite a little reputation for yourself on this sight. But you know what, I take it back, I will address an issue you raise within your nihilistic ad hominem (given like some brainless android & then calling me a Randroid, for goodness gracious). Rather than ignoring the issue you raise, I will address it. You ask: what keeps me from saying truthfully that it is my self-interest to advocate altruism. The answer, dear Tony, is reality. It is a contradiction to say it is in my self-interest to be self-sacrificial. To give the government the moral right to take some of Bill Gates’ great wealth (thanks Mumu), is also to give the government the right to take whatever little wealth you may have–you obviously have a computer and access to the internet so you must have something of value someone poorer than you might want. Are you ready to give up your computer that you write your ditties on for all of us to enjoy? Reality, in other words, is the final arbitrator of the truth of what we present. Unfortunately, statist-altruists like yourself may only find this out the falsity of your beliefs after it is too late–when all your rights along with everyone else’s are taken away.

But I’m not an altruist in that way. According to my political beliefs, the question that must be answered when approaching any policy is “Does this increase human well-being?” And then we have to define well-being, and I define it as including individual self-determination and privacy and other freedoms you guys all cherish too. Yes, that’s altruism in a way, but it’s no great leap to realize that what’s best for everyone is also best for me. If you truly must have self-interest be the motivation, there it is.

Of course the very act of concerning yourself with public policy (as even Randians do) is necessarily to express beliefs about how others should live and what’s good for them. That’s what politics is. I’m saying that Ayn Rand was wrong in her belief that laissez-faire capitalism and rugged individualism is the best system for everyone, and I base that on the evidence in the world. She just fails to acknowledge that she is proposing a system just like anyone else. She wants to give herself extra credit by stamping “reason” onto her system. Which is just bad form.

I disagree, Ann. Altruism–defined as it is everyone’s MORAL duty to serve others is the central issue. If serving others is considered moral, then a “moral” government will eventually try to enforce what that morality. That is what you see today.

Our country was based upon a different idea–although the idea was only implicit. It said the government should protect individuals and the pursuit of their own happiness. Implicit is that pursuing your own happiness is moral. What is needed is an understanding that that is moral foundation of the country–it is moral to pursue your own happiness and to respect the rights others have in the pursuit of their happiness as well. We exist with each other without force because we trade voluntarily with each other in pursuing our own values. The government abolishes force by protecting those rights. Its one and only purpose is to protect those rights.

Unless you’re an anarchist then you support some law and some enforcement. The ironic thing is that “minarchists” only support those functions of the state that involve actually shooting people. Taxing and redistributing is done no matter how small or large government is, and if you accept the logic behind a little, you can hardly reject the logic behind a lot. We must get to a place where we’re arguing policy, not whose moral foundations are pure and whose aren’t–we both believe in collective action and state violence, it’s just a matter of degree.

The grudging acceptance of a minimum, and carefully-constrained, level of collective action and state violence as a regrettable necessity in order to sustain the state’s few legitimate functions is not merely different in degree from your enthusiastic totalitarianism.

Yes it is. No matter how grudgingly you accept it, by accepting it you admit to its necessity and, if you must, moral worth. And once you accept the utility of some taxing and redistribution for collective benefit, all you’re left with is a disagreement over how much and for what. I know you like to think you’re morally superior from the get-go, but that’s just libertarian self-pleasure.

Tony|1.14.14 @ 3:49PM|# …”We must get to a place where we’re arguing policy, not whose moral foundations are pure and whose aren’t–we both believe in collective action and state violence, it’s just a matter of degree.”

Wrong, shitpile. We claim the government must protect individual liberties. You claim the government must steal from individuals.

Thanks, Tony, for offering your position in a respectful way. I will address it in a like manner.

Your position sounds similar to utilitarianism. The most well known advocate of this position right now is Sam Harris. He advocates systems that offer the greatest well being for the greatest number. But the issue Harris and other utilitarians have is defining well being. What if a great many people feel that it good for their well being to enslave others? In the antebellum South this was indeed the case. What is the answer to this? If well-being or happiness or feeling good or any other emotion is the foundation of your moral theory, it is without moral foundation. Emotions and feeling do not constitute reasons.

So Tony, what if someone refuses to serve the greater good of all those other people’s feelings. What do you do about them? Who decides what is the greater good? Who decides what to do about those who don’t serve those great mass of people expecting better feelings? It is all arbitrary and you set in motion subjective rationalizations that have a propensities toward totalitarianism.

Tony’s position cannot be separated from ‘the ends justify the means’, the cry of tin-pot dictators the world over. Like those sad excuses for humanity, Tony presumes self-righteousness in his ignorance.

I get everyone’s vitriol against Tony, but, you know, he just some random guy posting on a website. The sad thing is a large portion of the population agrees with him and that’s probably where our anger comes from. But I really try to save my anger expressed in words for the people who have implemented the philosophy Tony expresses–people like most of the Presidents serving in my life time, and and others like Hilary Clinton and the current Pope who use their authority to kill the idea of individual rights & freedom and won’t hesitate to kill and hurt others to do so. These are the truly despicable people. Tony, as far as we know, really doesn’t fit in that category.

The point of slavery is a good one. If we could enslave 10% of the population, we can easily determine that such slavery is good for the entire population as a whole. Much like it was an economic boon for the South pre Civil War.

Of course, the progressive answer is that slavery is obviously bad, while denying that forcing someone to work for someone else’s benefit for the “common good” is actually slavery. Nevermind that their idea of using an inefficient and monopolizing government in substitution for the incredibly efficient free market to do such things is idiotic at face value.

Democratically elected representatives. Who decides it in your system? Sounds like Ms. Rand decides and we all just sit and take it.

Who decides what to do about those who don’t serve those great mass of people

Same answer, same question. Do you propose to deal with those who reject egotism and entrepreneurship as the highest virtues the same way nature does? Why is that preferable to what we’ve built and called civilization?

It is all arbitrary and you set in motion subjective rationalizations that have a propensities toward totalitarianism.

But you’ve advocated for a totalitarianism of ideology from the outset. Are free democratic populations allowed to deviate from laissez-faire capitalism if that’s what they want? If not, isn’t that tyranny? Why doesn’t freedom include the freedom to join with one’s neighbors and decide how they want to run their society? That, not rugged individualism, was the point of the founding.

Necessarily in order for a system to be legitimate, nobody can be enslaved and every adult must have the franchise. I’m not saying there aren’t axiomatic principled involved, but they are actually less specific and arbitrary than yours.

Tony, for the sake of argument, lets say that we should all be as altruistic as you, all willing to do our best for the benefit of humanity and our nation as a whole.

Thing is, you fail to realize that this is also our goal, but we want to use the more efficient free market to get to that place. The government monopolizes and introduces inefficiencies and corruption into the free market and is in all actuality, in most instances a hindrance to progress. This is the great irony of modern progressivism.

The fact that we want to do this whilst maintaining a strict standard of liberty for all people irks people like you for some reason that I can’t quite comprehend.

Most libertarians do not think the free market should be 100% free. (gasp) We do not believe that corporations or businesses should be able to use force or fraud or coercion, most of us believe that they should not be able to freely pollute the air we breathe, either. That is the role that we believe government should have, to prosecute such acts.

The free market has and always will be the most efficient means of progress, and the reason we despise progressives like you on moral and ideological grounds is because you are either too ignorant to understand such a simple and proven concept, or you are simply a thief.

PaulW–I like the reasoned tone of you post, but it is troubling that many Libertarians like yourself are not full-throated advocates for capitalism. You do the cause for freedom no service by sitting on the fence for the only moral economic system there is. I respectfully suggest investigating the moral arguments for capitalism. There are many persuasive advocates out there. They provide the best defense for freedom. We must be armed with moral arguments to win.

Anarcho-capitalism is not my slice of pie. There are way too many issues with it, and while some stances may be convincing, I don’t think it works in the real world.

In fact, I’m absolutely convinced it would never work in the real world. 2k years of world history, tribal warfare, protection rackets, etc. There is no new Anarcho-Capitalist Man anymore than there is a new Soviet Man.

One must always take into account the ways of the average human rather than the perfect human for your ideology.

If you’d like to point me to your favorite advocate, though, I am open minded.

Freedom and government must coexist. Even if one is not conducive to the other. The trick is figuring out the best way for them to co-exist, and I know that libertarianism comes the closest to that ideal. We can try and paint the world in black and white, we can try and pretend that it is all mathematical logic without any abstractions, we can pretend that morality can only be based through mathematical logic, but the world does not work that way. Trying to pretend it does is a disservice to everyone including yourself.

I am personally unfamiliar with Anarcho-Capitalism. Perhaps you could define it for me–that’s a serious question, I am not being snarky.

Capitalism is simply a system of voluntary trade. Force is abolished by the government by protecting individual rights and legal contracts made by individuals or their companies with other individuals or their companies. America came closest to such a system after the Civil war up to 1913 when income tax and the Federal Reserve was established. America saw the greatest economic growth mankind has ever seen before or sense.

Perhaps I am confused then, David. Re-reading your posts I think you and I basically have the same ideas on how the market should work in our country. What part of my above argument to Tony, do you take issue with? Perhaps my wording is a bit different than what I would normally use, but I was trying to put it into terms Tony could understand.

Anarcho-capitalism basically calls for the elimination of the state entirely, including judicially as well as police forces, as most anarcho things do. Wikipedia gives a decent synopsis of it.

That’s demonstrably untrue. More people had more personal security (and more liberty) after the progressive reforms of the 20th century than before. They were the greatest antipoverty programs known to man. That’s what’s real.

Poverty has remained stagnant since the war on poverty. The trillions of dollars of redistribution have done absolutely nothing to fight poverty. In fact, looking at the charts, you could argue that the war on poverty actually stopped the progress on poverty from the late 40s to 60s when it was dropping drastically until almost the instant the war on poverty started.

Meanwhile, the free market has made the poorest of us live better than kings of 100 years ago. JP Morgan and Rockefeller could not have combined all of their vast wealth to create even the seemingly simplest of things we take for granted every day.

If social security is so good for me why am I forced to contribute. I would rather not. And why are most young people not counting on it for fear it will go bankrupt before they reach retirement. If the Federal Reserve Bank is so good, why all the economic bubbles that have cause so much chaos. If the minimum wage laws are so good, why is youth unemployment such a good thing when it is known to be directly caused by minimum wage laws. Et cetera.

Come on Tony, pony up. Pick one so-called reform and elucidate us in detail on how it has increased freedom and security.

Your progressive reforms of the 20th century killed far more people than they helped and that’s not counting the theft they engaged in to do so.

Mao’s China killed millions with its great leap forward which you would heartily endorse because it was both democratic and utilitarian. The fact that it was demonstrably wrong and horribly evil is beside the point, since it’s the intent that matters. And then there’s Deng’s freer market reforms that not only didn’t kill people but was unquestionably the largest antipoverty program ever introduced. And that’s even in its crony capitalism form. Imagine what would have happened if they had adopted truly free markets.

National Socialism was elected by a democratic process. It invested in your precious Keynesian infrastructure stimulus. So what if it killed a few tens of millions. Government is inherently good. Democracy can never do wrong…

And then we have your precious socialism in action just a few hundred kilometers to the east. Remind me how many tractors were built while the Ukraine starved…

The greatest anti-poverty program ever created is the free exchange of free markets. Your progressivism is nothing but a blight. A cancerous boil that has the sweet smell of decaying flesh.

Ms. Rand is dead, so she can’t decide anything. Would you care to define the greater good? Society is just a bunch of individuals with individual wants and needs. The only greater good that can be done is provide human beings with the freedom to provide for the own wants and needs. Anything that gets in the way of that is evil.

Laissez-faire comes from laissez nous faire which literally means leave us alone. It is what the French merchantile class answered when one of the King Louies asked what he could do for them. It is the exact opposite of totalitarianism, Tony. Freedom does allow you to join a society and run it any way you want as long as you don’t violate their rights. Mutual support societies use to proliferate in the US until Social Security destroyed them. That’s just it. Socialism and other forms won’t leave me alone to live my life as an individual. The system I advocate allows people to join communes and practice socialized whatever as long as they don’t force people to join of force them to stay in if they opt out.

Which might work except for the minor biological fact that new people are born from time to time. The fact is you are able to opt out (and I would oppose any society in which you weren’t), it’s just that you were opted in at birth and you have never chosen to opt out. Of course, you can’t opt out of paying for the extant services while still benefiting from them. I realize it’s not perfect from your point-of-view since there isn’t really anywhere to go that isn’t covered by some sort of social contract, but nobody ever said you were entitled to an infinite earth. If social contracts tend to be the norm, and laissez-faire economies all but nonexistent, perhaps there’s some practical reason for that. It could be the case that all humans everywhere are living under tyranny, but that’s too pointlessly pessimistic an outlook for me.

You need to make a distinction between voluntary social contracts which we make all the time in our lives, and the so-called social contracts that rights-violating government imposes upon us. Obamacare is just the latest in the long bloody history of statism.

Your facetious swipe at rational egoism misses, Tony. Morality defines the ethics for having the most happy, successful life possible. To get the most out of living on this earth that you can. What is truly evil is not giving a shit about other human beings’ individual rights. Where do you stand on that.

Yes, they lied and yes, the thing was written with no hope that it would succeed without the New Soviet Man (proggies are truly stupid): “Older, less healthy seek health coverage” But not to worry, we they roll out the new advertising program, the yutes will be lined up for a chance to pour their money down ratholes!http://www.sfgate.com/health/a…..139876.php

And let’s pile on: “Court allows state to cut payment rate to doctors” MediCal (the CA ‘free shit’ medical plan) is allowed to cut imbursements to all providers, some of the cuts retroactive. This at the same time the MediCal rosters are rising, courtesy of O-care insurance rate increases. Of course, this won’t affect the supply of those goods and services, will it?http://www.sfgate.com/health/a…..139800.php

My liberal freshly minted primary care doctor relative who became a doctor to help hard working poor people – when asked who is going to treat the people signing up for Medicaid answers “not me – Medicaid doesn’t even pay enough to cover expenses, let alone pay me”

When asked what she will do when the government forces all doctors to accept Medicaid patients, her response is “They can’t do that – I work for a private company”.

Like employers and Georgetown can ignore Obamacare because they’re private companies. Leading lambs to slaughter. She’s loaded up on student loans. Good luck going on strike.

I used to try to reason with people and I may have even convinced a few over time. But my current defaults are: “You’re fucking retarded” and “Go fuck yourself.” I have lost the energy for everything else.

You forgot another lie, the Medicaid enrollment figures attributable to Obamacare. So far we have the claim of 4 million through November, but that includes ALL enrollments including people who were already eligible pre ACA and even states that didn’t sign on to the expansion. More on that here: http://www.realclearpolitics.c…..21209.html

Probably ALL of the enrollment figures (past, present and future) from the Administration are a lie. The guy who blogs at ACAdeathspiral.org has some good analyses, too, in addition to Real Clear Politics.

The Tonys of the world are suckers for any altruist–collectivist who comes along promising free lunches, to be paid for by…blankout.

Even if you manage to get something for free, someone else had to pay for it–and if someone else gets the same deal, *who* is paying for *that*?

Blankout.

This illustrates the farcical nature of those “positive rights” the leftoids are always pimping. Rights and obligations are inseperable, regardless of whether they are “negative” or “positive”. So if you have a “positive right” to free healthcare, you have the selfsame obligation to provide said right to someone else, and the whole thing is self-negating.

It is only through their own fear, swinishness, and incredulity that anyone can be sold on the notion of free shit as a “positive right”. But to see new entitlement programs being pushed in a country already drowning in debt, is crudely illustrative of the mass evasion of today’s pseudo-intellectuals and lamestream leftoid culture-wranglers.

Tony–I come to this website for the fun of engaging in ideas. It would not be nearly so much fun for me if everyone agreed. I am new to the site, though. My guess is that eventually it will not be fun engaging with you, as I will eventually tire of your unfounded and unoriginal ideas. At that point, you are right, I will be a little sadder for it.

The thing that disturbs me most about this debacle isn’t that the President lied. This is common in politics. What really bothers me is that the people in this nation believe that it’s ok for the government to force individuals to purchase a commercial product for the simple luxury of living and breathing.

How To Opt Out Of Obamacare. Know your options and become savvy self-pay patients. Join a health care sharing ministry. These are voluntary, charitable membership organizations that agree to share medical bills among the membership. They function similar to insurance, and are probably the best alternative to conventional health insurance. There are four of them, at least that I know of. Three are open only to practicing Christians (Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare Ministries, and Christian Care Ministry) while a fourth, Liberty HealthShare, is open to anyone who agrees with their ethical commitment to religious liberty. They operate entirely outside of Obamacare’s regulations, and typically offer benefits for about half the cost of similar health insurance. Members are also exempt from having to pay the tax for being uninsured. From the article by Sean Parnellhttp://thefederalist.com/2013/…..iM_o.email

Will Obamacare be repealed or won’t it? Will Congress fund it or won’t it? Will the web site be fixed or won’t it? Blah, blah, blah. We the people just need to do what we need to do and Congress be damned. Resist. Refuse. Revolt. EXEMPT OURSELVES! We did not comply with Prohibition and we simply should not comply with Obamacare. For religious reasons. For privacy reasons. For the cause of liberty and freedom and in protest of the idea that the federal government (under one party rule, no less), can force private citizens to purchase anything with our own money. Are we citizens or subjects? Mice or (wo)men? Just say NO to socialism and to the corrupt, unionized, far left IRS, the gestapo of America’s political class. After all, the federal government ignores millions of illegals who are breaking U.S. immigration law every day. Our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. All we have to do is just say no to a scheme we all know is un-American and a violation of our most basic founding fundamentals of privacy, self reliance, limited government and individual freedom.

Peter, you left out a big lie. Bart Stupak was promised that abortion would not be included in Obamacare. It would never have passed the House. And not only did HHS write regulations that force inclusion of birth control bills, it also includes coverage for abortion drugs. Obama is so insistent that this regulation must be enforced that they will not even allow exemptions for NUNS! Hence, the Little Sisters of the Poor are now on the way to the Supreme Court!

The supreme court legislated from the bench and called this a “tax”, and therefore constitutional. Guess what stupremes? It started in the WRONG HOUSE for a tax. If any part of a law is unconstitutional the whole law is void. If any part of a contract is fraudulent the whole contract is void. The ACA was sold to American’s based on lies, by a known pathological liar, and it’s NOT affordable.

The whole of Obamacare is a farce, just like the whole of Obama. Repeal Obamacare and impeach Obama. Obama has never proved that he is even eligible to legally be president. He has admitted that he was born in Kenya BEFORE he was even a state senator and still no one calls him on it. This is a total bullshit Manchurian Candidate that has illegally enacted laws like Obamacare that are null and void,period.

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